22 February, 2017

FOR MY MUSLIM BRETHREN

It's a dangerous argument to say that since only 1% or fewer#Muslimsare#terroriststhe entire community should not be blamed.

Consider these:- just one of the pilots flying a particular airline's planes is a novice, prone to aircrash- just one of the thousands of nuclear bombs in the global nuclear arsenal explodes every month- just one of the asteroid passing the earth by collides once every century- just 1% of the neighborly dogs randomly start biting us- just 1% of the coke bottles you drink has poison inside, instead

How will you treat the 'rest of the 99%' in all of the above situations?

Terrorism is no mean incident. So it can not be undermined with an alarmingly dismissive "just".

And in this case even if they are 0.0001%, that is a whopping 170,000 terrorists in various stages of preparation for attacks, or a hundred each for every major city of the world

Let's ask instead:- why do we have more terrorists, pro rata, than other communities of today- why more Muslims are being killed by Muslims than by non-Muslims- why the entire Muslim world (perhaps barring South Asia & erstwhile Soviet Union) is suffering this menace- why Muslims are now the largest migrant population

"Muslims may be terrorists, but Islam is not terrorism. Why do they blame the faith?"

Well, we must recognize that our terrorism is perpetrated in the name of#Islam, with chants of Allah-o-Akbar. Nazi, Irish, LTTE terrorism, for instance, was largely political. We invoke the faith - they decry the faith.

Yes, like every other crime, Muslim terrorism was not born in a vacuum. There were causes: colonialism, Palestine, Kashmir etc etc.

Sure, but is terrorism THE solution? Has it worked? Is there any likelihood it will? And what is it costing the rest of us?

Denial forecloses correction. We must accept boldly that there is a serious problem that threatens the very survival of Islam - and of the Muslim identity. And then solemnly go about correcting it.